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Gynecologist William Howell Masters ( December 27, 1915 – February 16, 2001) and psychologist Virginia Eshelman Johnson (born February 11, 1925) pioneered research into human sexual behavior during the 1950s and 1960s. They recorded some of the first laboratory data on human sexual response and dispelled many long standing misconceptions about sexual behaviour through their work. Masters divorced his first wife to marry Johnson. They divorced some thirty years later, largely bringing their joint research to an end.They jointly wrote two classic texts in the field, Human Sexual Response and Human Sexual Inadequacy, published in 1966 and 1970 respectively.
1 Research Work
Masters and Johnson met in 1957Events January January 2 San Francisco and Los Angeles stock exchanges merge. January 3 Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch January 4 After 69 years the last issue of Colliers magazine is published January 5 Russell Endean becomes t when William Masters hired Virginia Johnson as a research assistant to undertake a comprehensive study of human sexuality. Previously, the study of human sexuality ( sexology) had been a neglected area of study due to the restrictive social conventions of the time.
Alfred KinseyKinsey redirects here; there is also a movie called Kinsey about the sex researcher''. Alfred Charles Kinsey ( June 23, 1894 August 25, 1956) was an entomologist and zoologist at the Indiana University at Bloomington who in 1947 founded the Institute for had previously published two volumes on sexual behavior in the human male and female (known as the Kinsey ReportsThe Kinsey Reports are two controversial books on human sexual behaviour, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), by Dr. Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy and others. Kinsey was a zoologist at the Indiana University), both of which had been revolutionary and controversial in their time. Kinsey's work however, had mainly investigated the frequency of which certain behaviors occurred in the population. In contrast, Masters and Johnson set about to study the structure, psychologyPsychology is the study of mind, thought, and behaviour. It is largely concerned with humans, although the behaviour and thought of animals is also studied; either as a subject in its own right (see animal cognition), or more controversially, as a way of and physiologyPhysiology is the study of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living organisms. Physiology has traditionally been divided into plant physiology and animal physiology but the principles of physiology are universal, no matter what partic of sexual behaviour, through observing and measuring masturbation and sexual intercourse in the laboratory.
As well as recording some of the first physiological data from the human body and sex organs during sexual excitation, they also framed their findings and conclusions in language that espoused sex as a healthy and natural activity that could be enjoyed as a source of pleasure and intimacy.
2 Four Stage Model of the Sexual Response
One of the most enduring and important aspects of their work has been the four stage model of sexual response, which they described as the human sexual response cycle. They defined the four stages as this cycle as:
- Excitement phase (initial arousal)
- Plateau phase (at full arousal, ready for orgasm)
- Orgasm
- Resolution phase (after orgasm)
3 Sexual Dysfunction
By attempting to understand the structure, psychology and mechanisms of sexual behaviour, Masters and Johnson provided the ground work for a theory driven approach to treating sexual dysfunction and inadequacy. They started a clinic in St. Louis to treat sexual complaints such as impotency and inability to achieve orgasm, based on their findings in their laboratory studies.
